If there will be enough slots I will definately create at least one character from each race but if not I will probably create a Asura, a Sylvari and a Charr.! ^_^

I'm in GW since the first world preview back in 2004 and even I'm playing only occassionaly in the meantime, I'm still there. :)

Our Guild and Alliance is still together and when GW2 will come out we will surely move over together aswell!

I also have many players from other games that are waiting for GW2 to come out so they can move there so we will definately be a big and great bunch of experienced players from all over the world. :)

Originally posted by Daffid011

Originally posted by Raekon

EQ2 was there for years and they had not even ONE spot running to tv and barely any were in the magazines to say the least.
 

Additionaly EQ2 was mostly for people that had a clue about the lore AND was partially and it wasn't mindless bring me 100 heads from the same person questing like WoW to say the least.

You seem to under the impression that Blizzard was running television ads for warcraft prior to its release.  Perhaps I missed it, but warcraft television ads started showing in late 2007 with the shatner/troyner spots.  

As for eq2 not advertising much, are you kidding?  You didn't see the full size cutouts in stores of Antonia Bayle of Lucan D'lere?  For petes sakes they hired Heather Graham and Christopher Lee to head up the voice acting in the game.  Soe had an entire division devoted to advertising and marketing mmos, not only for themselves, but other companies that needed a publisher.  There was plenty of EQ2 vs Warcraft advertising going on. 

I also think you are mistaken with your view of what eq2 was supposed to be.  EQ2 was supposed to be the next generation mmo that would dominate the market.  That is why soe worked so hard to compete and rush to beat wow to market.  It wasn't aimed to be some niche game as you are trying to make it out to be.  EQ2 was aimed at capturing a wider and more casual market.  Just because it failed to do that doesn't change what it was intended to be.

 

The question I keep coming back to is, if the key to success of an mmo was simply advertising it, what is holding back so many games from doing just that?  It can't be that big of a secret if the posters on mmorpg.com know about it. 

 

Dear daffid.... you obviously missed that I'm talking about a worldwide scale and not only about your place right?
 

In Germany heck even in Greece when I went there you could see tv spots about wow as the only one mmo.

Advertisement HELPS and that's no lie! Additionaly as others said fans from diablo and warcraft/starcraft were millions already? I'm one of them and I'm not denying that this was one of the main reasons I joined wow and to my dissappointment I saw a screwed up story that had barely to do with the warcraft series (illogical stuff they as I heard partially corrected later) a very simple character editor that make no difference with some mediocre or simple korean mmos and couldn't match editors like the unmatchable one from city of heroes/villains (OK no mmo ever managed to do that yet. :P ), a gameplay that was nothing else than mediocre, a frustrating and boring repeatable quest system (hey! Let's let this guy get into the fight with the mobs so we can steal the quest item so when he comes out after he made the whole effort gets nothing and has to wait for a respawn while he needs to fight again!), a bad distribution (random luck in "epic items" and rare items with dice roll) of items, holes in the generated blending of the BITMAPS of the environment (yes they were bitmaps....), a traveling system that had you to walk 30 minutes to reach the next place so you can open a travel option and travel with a griffin or flying bot, the possibility to fall out of a map and land on the water with the only option to either swim for 30 minutes or longer to reach a place you can come back on a land spot or instantly die and much more that actually any good mmo would had done  and already has done much better!

Don't even start me with the pvp....

So don't start me please with "it's the unmatched gameplay fanboy talk" cause such talks are epic fails in my opinion.

Their whole gameplay are pieces they took out of other mmos, polished a bit and sold as their own system and nothing more.

Nothing new, nothing special. I don't mind that though cause if someone likes it they should play it!

However, the game itself is definately not the reason for the success they had with it cause there are many other mmos that did many of these features much better then they ever did!

Have Fun!

Originally posted by Daffid011

Originally posted by Raekon

Fact is that Blizzard believe it or not mainly managed to make WoW to the most successful game when it comes to subscribers due to Advertisements, Word of Mouth and most of all due to their previous fanbase.

By advertisements I don't mean the newest that are running up and down the whole time now only because they need more subscribers again. I mean the ones since the beginning that were allover the place the whole time.

 

Allow me to disagree with your 'facts' and the conclusion you draw from them.

 

Advertising:

EQ2 released within weeks of Warcraft.  Each game saturated the market with pre-release hype and advertising.  There was very little difference between the coverage of each game.  Yet EQ2 was merging servers within a years time and Warcraft could not keep pace with new subscribers.  Obviously there was something more to success than simply advertising or else each game would have similar success rates. 

 

Previous fanbase

Again EQ2 had millions of previous and current fans to draw from.  Perhaps not the same amount as battlenet, but most of those were subscription paying players either.  Star wars, the sims, D&D, Lord of the rings, Warhammer just for example all have massive followings, yet the results are no where near wow.  Obviously there is something more than having access to a large potential playerbase.

 

Word of mouth.

This is where I think things tell the story.  Wow gets positive word of mouth, because that game does so many things right.  It may not appeal to everyones personal tastes, but the game is well made and entertaining for many people.  Thus it gets positive word of mouth.  Look at just about any other mmo at release and you see mostly negative reviews, because far to many games release before they are finished or complete.   Word of mouth isn't something that can be bought or traded for.  It is earned.  

EQ2 was there for years and they had not even ONE spot running to tv and barely any were in the magazines to say the least.
 

Additionaly EQ2 was mostly for people that had a clue about the lore AND was partially and it wasn't mindless bring me 100 heads from the same person questing like WoW to say the least.

The Word of mouth came mostly through previous fans of the warcraft series and through advertisement before the game were even in the open beta state. Every magazine had on every second site a wow image on it and advertisement, in the tv were running spots the whole time which made people that had previously no clue what a mmo is at all being curious and willing to give it a try!

I know how addicted I was immediately when I played my first mmo. No matter how much it sucked or what did good or wrong I accepted it because it was a whole new experience and I was connected and interacting with 1000s of people from allover the world or at least my land so the game and its features turned out to be of secondary meaning at the end.

The same thing happened to millions of newbies that joined wow and this is definately a fact cause I meet many no matter  if they were from work, friends or even strangers. People were like "did you hear about wow?" I was like yes I know it why?

"Well I saw this spot on the tv and someone else said that you connect to so many people and that its soooo cool"

Account made, game played, friends found the rest is history. Do you really thing that this guy or most the others cared about the design or anything else that goes deeper into the detail of the game? Not at all! I even had colleagues that I presented other games later and told them "and? how do you find this one?" and they were like, "ok... wow is not THAT good after all, but I know so many people there, it would be sad to go".

There isn't always the features that make a game stand out and I think that you would agree that no other mmo or barely any mmo ever made advertisements on the tv (at least here in europe they didn't) while blizzard were jumping on our face day and night.

So don't start me with "low requirements" or "great game" and such cause low requirements are offered by many games that have less to no lag compared to what wow used to have and they are also great games and some of them even much better than wow ever was or ever will be. They just doesn't get aknowledged by the wide public because they mostly only advertise over the net on a banner or gaming sites and only partially as also barely on gaming magazines.

Blizzard never made anything original. They however know how to "borrow" parts from different previous games and polish them by placing them together in one game as also how to advertise them well since they have the money for this. Believe it or not, iIt's as simple as that.

You can dissagree as much as you want but then just tell me how many of the games you can find on mmorpgs.com game list ever was on TV or every second page of a magazine no matter if gaming magazine or other and then we can talk further ok?

Originally posted by Slampig

"So everyone that claims that WoW is the Best does it only because of fanboism without looking further because they like the game in my opinion, nothing more and nothing less."

 

Huh?

That has nothing to do with..."fanboism"...whatever THAT means.

It is personal opinion..."nothing more and nothing less."

"Strangely" I only see most of them not having the term "in my opinion" anywhere in their posts, unlike mine. ;)

Also when someone just posts "WoW is the best" and after someone like me or other critize because we like to look through all colors instead of only black and white they fall upon us, then it is certainly a act that can be called fanboism.

Anyway... I hope that everyone will also try to widen their horizons and perspectives through other available mmos there(most of all the newer people that wow was their only mmo or only tried out 2-3 mmos they found out through advertisements only) and try to look behind the features of a game instead only comparing stuff cause in my opinion this wouldn't only help the companies to hear out a players desire but will also make players to have a wider perspective of gaming in overal.

Have fun! :)

Well since I were quoted like 5 pages ago and I don't intend to quote like tons of people in over 5 pages, I'll rather write a few facts:

- people that say that WoW or any other mmo is the BEST without have played all the available mmos out there fail!

I have tested and played 100+ (or even 150+ I lost the count somewhere =P ) and I still haven't all because there are far more out there. I can tell that there are many other games that are better than WoW in many terms but can't tell they are the Best nor can I say it to ANY mmo out there because I didn't tested or played all available mmos out there.

So everyone that claims that WoW is the Best does it only because of fanboism without looking further because they like the game in my opinion, nothing more and nothing less.

- this discussion started as why wow is this and that and went over to what blizzard does and how blizzard is. I saw however many posters mixing both things with each other a little or a lot so the discussion turned upside down.

Fact is that Blizzard believe it or not mainly managed to make WoW to the most successful game when it comes to subscribers due to Advertisements, Word of Mouth and most of all due to their previous fanbase.

By advertisements I don't mean the newest that are running up and down the whole time now only because they need more subscribers again. I mean the ones since the beginning that were allover the place the whole time.

I remember myself when I was totally excited about it before I made it into the closed beta and later to the open beta because I thought the story will be like in the warcraft series, the gameplay will be awesome and many other things.

After all they had admitted that they took many things from the most successfull mmos out there and build them into their game (at least they were honest in that part a little). However, after I entered the game only to see how much they had fucked up the story that had nothing or very little to do with the warcraft universe, the holes on the bitmaps based graphics of the environment, the gameplay which barely any good in my opinion (except if you were a mmo newbie that were playing a game like this for the first time OR a little kid) and all the other flaws, I was greatly dissappointed.

I gave it another try in the open beta for 2 weeks and the officiall forums were as horrible as the most online players were (except a few good people here and there). Additionaly the VERY linear skill tree and everything around character creation and unbalanced classes they were messing up after each patch was another point so I gave up the game, said goodbye to the few people I knew and could call friends(this was the only hard part) and left there.

I got to know many people at work, in the train and everywhere that were on wow without having a clue what a mmo ever was.

No wonder, every second page of all the gaming magazines were filled with WoW advertisements. Do you think it doesn't work? Well see for yourself cause it does!

- about the guy that says accessability is great, it might be great now but it definately wasn't for a very long time.

I won't go further into the gameplay, its flaws and many other things that are much worse than in other mmos I have played cause I know that the ones that like everything that gets served to them without critisizing anything will fall upon me again. <_< 

Originally posted by Broomy

Originally posted by Zoulz

Originally posted by nyxium

 Blizzard have excellent advertising schemes as well, the Mr T Night Elf Mohawk, a class that doesn't exist but so should, caught viewers attentions, and Ozzy sold Wrath to the masses. But then, as others here have stated, Blizz can afford to do stuff like that whereas other less fortunate companies can just about afford word of mouth and web banners. :S

In the world of competition, reputation and mass advertising rule together.

 

And yet, WoW was already popular when they started running the Mr T and Ozzy commercials. Advertising wasn't what made WoW big.

 

Agreed, those gimmicky, celebrity filled commercials for WOW came out years later AFTER WOW was a huge success. 

I see alot of people also saying that money made WOW a success.  This I don't beleive.  All the money in the world doesnt make a game successful, innovation and mass appeal does.  Now if you say Blizzard took all that money and bought the best developers in the industry and thus became a success I would partly agree, but other games that have failed horribly also had the best developers.  Look at Tabula Rasa!  Year in the making and led up by an icon in the industry, Garriott.  Also had loads of capital poured into it.  It ended up as an abyssmal failure.  Why? Simple it didnt have enough innovation or appeal to more people.  Again, the WOW formula for success:

Accessability

Fanbase

Mass appeal to all the gamer types (Casual, CORE & Hardcore)

PVP for the PVP crowd

Innovation

Every MMO that has failed recently (or at least lost tons of subs) has been missing one or more of the elements above.  They are either:

graphically challenged, with only the best machines able to run them properly;

too niche;

too unknown;

Too casual OR too Hardcore not allowing the various gamer types to engage in the game simutaneuosly.

 

 

 

 

- Accessability sucked a lot in many cases

- Fanbase was partially there through the warcraft series (I'm a fan of these too) and others came mostly through the advertisements.

- Mass Appeal only when it comes to newbies and people that had no idea what a mmo is previously, experienced players mostly touch the game once and let it be afterwards.

- pvp in the game was a joke in the beginning so they looked further and see there? After they checked out the heroes ascent from Guild Wars they all of sudden announced the battlegrounds. The same goes with the fame stuff they added later. :P

- the too unknown point is the major point and the lack of advertisement the next one when it comes to the most of these new mmos you are talking about. It doesn't mean that all are failing but that most of them are running in a lower scale.

Tabula Rasa would had been a much larger success if they had sticked on the original plan they had in my opinion.

The characters, the graphics, the world and everything else we had saw and read so far were very appealing and then they all of sudden dropped everything and remade everything to the sci fi game they delivered at the end. <_<

I guess that was what caused mainly the doom of this game which is very sad since it had lots of potential.

Most of all and I think we agree all to that, the majority of the players rather like fantasy then sci fi.

Well you can be sure that any good PR department and by that I don't mean only Blizzards but any company will tell you things about "unicorns and rainbows" so take such announcements always with a good grain of  salt portion. :/

Anyway.... for me was, still is and if they don't mess up in the future always be the best developer on MMOs and one of the first ones ever NCsoft.

I can't wait for AION and Soul&Blade to go into the beta status or be released! :)

Even Gems like City of Heroes/Villains, Guild Wars and many other games they brought were much better than WoW will ever be. Not to mention what Blizzard ripped from games like that and sold them as "new ideas" which wasn't the case.

Heck even free mmos are out there that are more fun than wow.

I remember the days where the first C&C came out from a VERY small company that couldn't afford large advertisement and stuff and then all of sudden Warcraft that "surprisingly" were using the exact same system popped out of nothing with the Blizzard name on it, lots of advertisement and money to push things to success which we all know took place.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the Warcraft series (except wow of course) till the frozen throne and I still have them.

Fact is though that money rules the world in many occassions (sad but unfortunately true) and blizzard is the best example on this.

Well maybe you should go back and read again since what I saw was additionaly "wow here and wow there" talking additionaly like how nobody could compete in features and other stuff.

As unfortunately only a few aknowledged the truth while others still keep saying "it wasn't the commercials or advertisements" I can only say that prior to its release Blizzard spend alone in the first two weeks 200000$ on promotion.

After its release they bought tons of space on many magazines around the world (like here in germany) for advertisement and they even made some have additional only wow based content.

So everyone that got any of these gaming magazines in their hands had like in every second page a advertisement of wow.

You think this didn't work? Well it did and you can see it on the numbers we are all talking about here.

However, after they lost many subscribers due to their in game bugs, waiting lines in between, crappy servers that never worked well in raids(maybe they should had put some of their money on hardware instead of advertisement?) they kept up with the advertisement.

You tell me if you get almost daily (not too many anymore but in the past and still in between), notification emails that a new update alert has been posted on this site without being blizzards.

Wanna talk about their announced "we have THAT many millions subscribers"?

Easy statistic basics: You count ALL the Subscribers you EVER had no matter if they are still active or have left the game like for ages.

The OP must be kidding with this thread saying or doing as if WoW is the best mmo ever or out there.

No bugs? I was there as one of their testers and the game was filled with bugs partially even after the release.

Spreading lies to make WoW more important than it actually is while it lost players and players over the years is not quite good.

The game mainly lives through promotion that had taken place in a huge scale compared to any other

developer only because they had the money to do so. Innovative? You must be kidding me?

What was/is innovative in WoW? That they ripped everything they saw in other mmos, placed them in one package and sold them as their own work after the original blizzards employs left the company so they can finally be original since Blizzard never was?

I'm not here to flame but I won't close my eyes to the truth either and go like " wow is the best of the best and no one can compare".

I have alpha/beta and play tested almost every mmo game you can find on mmorpg.com, onrpg or any other site so far which means 100+ additionaly to offline games and mods through the years and I can tell you that there are much better mmos out there then wow will ever be. 

The major difference is and always was  that blizzard had the money and the huge promotion as also all the warcraft fans through the years that tuned in after the release (many left after they show how the screwed the story and other things from the original story only because vivendi which hides behind the blizzard name for a few years now obviously had no clue of) additionaly to many mmo newbies that started there as their first mmo not knowing anything else when it comes to mmos at all.

On a sidenote, you can't go out there comparing different types of mmos only because they are both mmo games cause there are major difference between many depending if they are action based, sci fi space (like eve as example), fantasy, racing, jump n run, beat em up and so on....

Just my two coins. ;) 

Guild Wars is the best choice among most of the most popular ones.

You can jump in for a few pvp matches, quests, missions or just exploration and jump out to your private life and still have the feeling that you accomplished something since you came further to the story, learned more about it and was actually also a part of it. :)

Other than that there are a few good free mmos out there that you could try out but mostly action based and in a more anime style then western type of style or a mix.

I must definately agree with you!

I too can't wait for GW2 most of all because it will be more free movement included and even more than in other mmos like Climbing(none of the 30+mmos I have tested/played had this one so far), Swimming, Jumping, Running and more. 

I also always liked the story and the way the story involves your character letting it be a part of the whole story. 

PvP? The best than in any other mmo I tested/played so far except the raids in Lineage2 (castle vs castle) and Dark Age of Camelot that are not included(don't tell me WoW cause its pvp sucks in most of the cases since all the classes are predictable  ).

For now though I will enjoy the final Gwen story in the eye of the north in the preview soon and in the expansion also!

To be mentioned to those that still don't know about it: Eye of the North is the only add-on(Expansion) that was ever released for GW, Prophecies, Factions and Nightfall are Chapters and stand alone games. 

Well I registered for a account a looooooong time ago and I never was able to get it so.... after a few tries (2 weeks?) to get in, I just deinstalled the client and deleted the files from my PC.

The trailers I downloaded looked nice but it was the only thing I was able to see since I never came in the game.

End of the Story.

Hi!

I'm actually the leader of The Lords of Blood which is actually a new Guild I started in the time of the second preview.

I was in both previews and I'm still in the Beta as also already ordered the game which will reach me next february.

I'm also a Adult as also a very experienced beta tester and player. I have my own Supergroup in City of Heroes and I will be staying there too.

Though I made already a Guild of my own in Guild Wars, I was thinking that it might be better to give it up and just join a other as a member. I already have some members in the LoB Guild which I could also take with me if you want them (nice and friendly people who joined me while the second preview, 2 - 3 of them are still in the beta!).

We made two Guild vs Guild just for fun and we won the first while we lost the second due to some bugs we noticed and reported(unfortunatly our npcs stucked on the door of the enemies and couldn't move the whole battle  , while two of us lost connection).

My Main Character has the name Dumeka Shoren and she is a Necro/Mesmer which I love to play.

I'm using her mostly as debuffer and secondary damage dealer in PvP, while I'm summoning support in explorations and missions to strengthen the team.

I would love to get to know you so we can see if we fit as a team.  

I'm living in Germany and I can play on weekends anytime needed.

Under the week I don't have much time due to my work but I'm playing maybe 1 - 2 times(maybe in the beginning even more) for a hour or two.

To be able to be active in both MMORPGs, I would shorten my time to CoH in half in the future.

That's not a problem for me or my member there since I'm managing the group and the forums (I'm the leader) as also can coordinate events in CoH so that they won't get in the way of our events in Guild Wars.

I will be on this weekend on Guild Wars the most of the time so if you would like to get to know me check for me.

Btw: I love your site.

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